Memories
by iLackSocialLife
Summary: Dean and Sam are faced with a demon that uses poison to force its victims to face their worst fears and memories. Dean gets poisoned and Cas helps him deal.


By the time Sam realized what they had gotten themselves into, it was too late.

The whole situation caught him completely off guard, and really, how could he have known? His existence was so based on chance that the thought of not getting a glimpse of another sunrise was no longer unnerving. He and Dean took cases in their stride and overlooked their safety because, hell, they'd never get a job done if they watched their every step. There were only so many precautions they could take.

When they took this case, they naturally saw no particular danger to it. A demon. Victims. Grieving families. The demon literally scared its victims to death, which, to Sam, was just about the cruelest method he had encountered in his line of work. Hours of research told him everything he needed to know about the poison the demon used to pinpoint the most fragile parts of his victims' brains and eat at them, evoking their innermost fears or even forcing them to face a suppressed traumatic experience from the past. The terror the victims must have suffered was so visible and raw in their dead eyes that Sam and Dean later had to deny to each other their inability to look at the corpses.

"How long did it take for the victims to die?" Dean had asked two days earlier.

Sam shot him a mournful glance and sighed. "Hours. Maybe days," he muttered. "Son of a bitch just locked them up with their darkest fears and memories. The poison destroys the brain's defenses."

Dean nodded. "We'll get him." He paused. "What happens if one of us gets poisoned?"

"I'd rather we both avoid that." Sam leaned back in his chair and pinched the bridge of his nose, wincing at the mere thought. "But let's say I get poisoned. You'd have to get to me as fast as possible before the poison causes irreperable damage. Cas will handle the rest."

"Oh yeah," Dean scoffed. "The healing touch, huh?"

"Only you can make it sound like a bad thing."

"Yeah well." He smirked. "If you call three times and I don't pick up, consider me mind-molested by that thing."

He wouldn't pick up. Sam thought he felt his heart tear when Dean didn't answer his seventh call, but he wasn't entirely certain until he kicked down the door of some damp, filthy basement with Cas at his six, and found his brother tied to a bed, his sharp piercing cry shattering Sam's heart in ways he hadn't even dared imagine.

Cas rushed to the frightened man's side while Sam fought the demon to its death, and by the time Sam joined Cas, Dean was no longer screaming. His body went limp, and his eyes were glued to the ceiling, tears streaming persistently down his face.

"Dean?" Sam reached and touched the older man's shoulder, but immidiately regreted it when Dean visibly flinched at the contact. "Cas?"

Cas looked up nervously. "You should not worry, we weren't too late. The poison did not damage his brain, but I am assuming it must have aroused a distressing memory. He is in shock."

Sam shook his head. "How long till he...?"

"It will take a few days for him to recover," Cas assured.

Sam nodded. He hooked one arm under Dean's knees and secured the other across his shoulders, lifting him off the bed despite his tired moans of protest. It wasn't until Dean was seated safely in the passenger seat and they arrived at the motel that Sam realized he had been murmuring, "You'll be okay," the whole time.

Dean wasn't getting any better, and Sam was on the verge of bashing his head into a brick wall.

The man refused to eat, drink, talk, walk, sleep. His eyes took on a hollow, melancholy stare that bore into nothing but the wall before them. He wouldn't let Sam touch him. In fact, he seemed to hate it when Sam hovered around him.

Nonetheless, Sam refused to leave his side. "You haven't eaten in days, man," he said for what must have been the gazillionth time. "You need to eat."

Dean never gave any implication that he had even heard the words. The empty eyes were still fixed to the wall, unknowingly driving Sam insane. He wished Dean would cry, scream, throw punches. Hell, even the quiet tears from two days ago took a backseat to this deafening silence. Sam was terrified he might be approaching this the wrong way, and that his older brother would whither away in this very position.

His thoughts were interrupted by a familiar voice behind him. "Get out."

Sam jumped in surprise and turned to see Cas standing there in his usual attire, his blue orbs glinting with an emotion Sam couldn't quite place. "Warn a man," Sam breathed. "And what do you mean, 'get out'?"

"Get out, Sam," Cas repeated. "Get something to eat. Go for a drive. Let me handle Dean."

Sam huffed. "You think you can _handle _Dean? He's not all here, Cas. I don't even think he's here at all." He bit his lower lip for a second, then released it and pointed an accusatory finger at Cas. "You said we weren't too late. But we were. Or else he wouldn't be like this."

"We were not late," Cas sighed. "Will you leave for a while and allow me to help him?"

The taller man's shoulders slumped in defeat as he shook his head. "Fine." He swallowed hard and looked at Cas with a look so soulful that the angel couldn't help but wince. "Please fix him."

"I will."

Cas was still standing minutes after the door slammed behind Sam. He took in Dean's prose - the way he wouldn't acknowledge Cas's presence and how his gaze never skittered off the room wall. The angel knew he'd have to apologize to Dean later for what he was about to do, but he couldn't let sentiment put a hamper on his plan. Dean needed this - no matter that he would have to get worse for a while, no matter that he'd have to relive whatever trauma the poison aroused... If that's what it took to make him _Dean _again, then Cas didn't mind. This, Cas thought, is not Dean. Dean does not allow his fears to trample him. Dean _has _no fears. He scoffs at the _idea _of fear. And Cas will be damned if he didn't pull Dean out of his reverie.

Deep breaths. There goes nothing.

He took two long strides to the bed and hastily pulled the duvet off of Dean and ignored the frightened gasp Dean choked out as the angel sat on the edge of the bed and claimed Dean's shoulders in a steel grip.

It was like flipping a switch.

Dean was suddenly roused to action, pounding his fists into Cas's chest as though his life depended on it - and maybe it did. Who knew what was going on in his head? He kicked, elbowed, and shoved at Cas with every ounce of his negligible energy, but it was that long, breathless, heartbreaking wail he released that hogged the air from Cas's lungs. He couldn't stop, though.

"Dean," he said with a calm, even voice. "Relax."

If anything, that only made things worse. Dean's cries grew louder and his struggles more desperate, but Cas felt a jolt of hope when he thought he heard Dean say something.

"What?" he asked, leaning in. "What did you say, Dean?"

"Please. Sam."

"Sam isn't here, Dean. It's me." Cas released Dean's shoulder, and Dean took the opportunity to knee Cas in the stomach as they both stumbled off the bed and crashed on the floor in a mess of sheets and limbs.

Cas wrapped his arms around Dean, effectively pinning his arms to his chest and keeping him from clawing at the angel, but his legs were still free to kick, so he threw one of his legs over both of Dean's.

"Tell me," Cas demanded. "Tell me what you remembered."

If that was supposed to elicit a response from Dean, it had the opposite effect. Dean stilled and hung his head.

"You're safe. You can tell me."

Dean inhaled audibly and shuddered. "I can't," he whispered.

He spoke! He was coherent. Cas had never felt more victorious in his existence. He had to keep the man talking.

"Yes you can," he pressed.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Sam."

Cas's forehead crinkled in confusion. Dean couldn't possibly be afraid _of _Sam. He was only ever afraid _for _his little brother... _For. _"Dean, Sam won't know. It's just me. I give you my word, everything you say will remain between us. You have to let me in on this. You have to let go."

It was that tone, those words, that promise... It was everything, really, that made the tears start. Dean's breath caught in his throat and his cheeks flooded over with the tears he could no longer deny. His body, still held in the angel's arms, hunched forward as he gritted his teeth, trying desperately to hold back the pain threatening to wash him away into oblivion.

"I can't," he gasped. "I can't, I can't..."

Cas rested his whiskerstubbled cheek next to Dean's and whispered, "Yes, you can. You can tell me."

Dean sobbed as though the tears were getting ripped out of him, as though his heart was breaking into a million pieces, and it physically hurt Cas to see his friend in such a detoriated state. He moved off of him and instead pulled the broken man into his arms, cradling his head to his chest as he cried and stroking his hair every few seconds. The angel lost track of exactly how long they remained in this position, but he didn't dare move.

Then Dean spoke.

"The demon... He poisoned me. Then he tied me on the bed."

The words were slurred and murmured at best, but Cas would take whatever he could.

"Then I remembered something." His breaths came out in short gasps as he continued. "From before. From when I was a kid."

Cas stroked Dean's back slowly. "What did you remember?"

"Dad. Night." The tears returned full force, but he kept talking. "Said he'd go for Sammy if I didn't..."

The meaning of it all dawned on Cas like a ton of bricks... The bed. The way Dean flinched when Sam had touched him. John Winchester was Dean's suppressed trauma, and Cas could wholeheartedly admit he never saw _that _coming.

Cas rarely felt the need to cry, but this... This clawed at his heart like nothing else ever had. Dean, who never ceased to suffer in his adulthood, had suffered the worst possible kind of torture in his childhood as well. Dean sacrificed his childhood for Sam in every sense of the word, and the memories were so excruciating that it took a demon's poison to get them to resurface. And God, how Cas wished they hadn't.

Dean stopped crying, his body going lax in Cas's arms. Cas tightened his hold.

"Sam won't know. I promise."


End file.
